Wikimedia-l September 2016

wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org

73 participants
42 discussions

Re: [Wikimedia-l] New Readers research presentation
by Anne Gomez 22 Sep '16

22 Sep '16

*“Wikipedia is a social network. You’d use it if a friend in the US was on it and you wanted to connect with them.”* —Man, Construction Worker, 25-36, Lagos Please join us NEXT WEDNESDAY September 28th to review the research findings of the New Readers project. In this 1.5 hour presentation, we will review critical research findings from Mexico, India, and Nigeria. We will share discoveries from more than 5 months of research, including phone surveys in 13 languages, and more than 150 in-person interviews. More details on the project can be found at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers See you on Wednesday at 9 AM PDT / 4 PM GMT / 9:30 PM IST! YouTube link <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYymUXRzpU4> [1] / Blue Jeans link <https://bluejeans.com/354618595> [2] Thanks, Anne + the New Readers team [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYymUXRzpU4 [2] https://bluejeans.com/354618595 On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 4:59 PM, Joe Sutherland <jsutherland(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hello all! > > Please join us on September 28 at 16:00 UTC to review the research > findings of the New Readers project > <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers>! This 1.5 hour presentation > will share findings from user research in Mexico, India, and Nigeria. > > Why should you come? > > > - India, Nigeria, and Mexico represent more than 1.5 billion people, > more than 20% of the world > - Current Wikipedia awareness and usage in these countries is low – > less than 25% of people in Nigeria and India have even heard of Wikipedia > - In pursuit of the Wikimedia vision to make knowledge accessible to > “every single human being”, we aim to better understand users around the > world and meet their real needs > > Specifically, we will discuss: > > - Information seeking habits > - Internet use, devices, and general knowledge patterns > - Wikipedia awareness and usage > - User personas developed from findings > - Potential next steps and opportunities to better serve New Readers > in Asia, Africa, and Latin America > > More details on the project can be found on Meta-Wiki.[1] > > Join us on September 28 at 9am PDT / 4pm UTC / 9:30pm IST through our > YouTube stream[2] or with conferencing app BlueJeans.[3] > > best, > Joe Sutherland > > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers > [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYymUXRzpU4 > [3] https://bluejeans.com/354618595/ > > > -- > *Joe Sutherland* > Community Advocate > Wikimedia Foundation > joesutherland.rocks > -- *Anne Gomez* // Reading Product Manager, New Readers <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers> https://wikimediafoundation.org/ *Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Donate <http://donate.wikimedia.org>. *

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Invitation to WMF September 2016 Metrics & Activities Meeting: Thursday, September 29, 18:00 UTC
by Limayli Huguet 22 Sep '16

22 Sep '16

Dear all, The next WMF metrics and activities meeting will take place on Thursday, September 29, 2016 at 6:00 PM UTC (11 AM PDT). The IRC channel is #wikimedia-office on irc.freenode.net, and the meeting will be broadcast as a live YouTube stream. Meeting agenda: * Welcomes * Community update * Review of WMF top-level metrics * Feature Presentation * Research Update * Product Demo * Questions/discussions * Wikilove Please review https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_metrics_and_activities…> for further information about the meeting and how to participate. We’ll post the video recording publicly after the meeting. Thank you, -- Limayli Huguet Front Office Coordinator Wikimedia Foundation

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Research Showcase, September 21, 2016
by Sarah R 21 Sep '16

21 Sep '16

Hi Everyone, The next Research Showcase will be live-streamed this Wednesday, September 21, 2016 at 11:30 AM (PST) 18:30 (UTC). YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTDkVeqjw80 As usual, you can join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research. And, you can watch our past research showcases here <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase#September_2016>. This month's showcase includes. Finding News Citations for WikipediaBy *Besnik Fetahu <http://www.l3s.de/~fetahu/> (Leibniz University of Hannover)*An important editing policy in Wikipedia is to provide citations for added statements in Wikipedia pages, where statements can be arbitrary pieces of text, ranging from a sentence to a paragraph. In many cases citations are either outdated or missing altogether. In this work we address the problem of finding and updating news citations for statements in entity pages. We propose a two- stage supervised approach for this problem. In the first step, we construct a classifier to find out whether statements need a news citation or other kinds of citations (web, book, journal, etc.). In the second step, we develop a news citation algorithm for Wikipedia statements, which recommends appropriate citations from a given news collection. Apart from IR techniques that use the statement to query the news collection, we also formalize three properties of an appropriate citation, namely: (i) the citation should entail the Wikipedia statement, (ii) the statement should be central to the citation, and (iii) the citation should be from an authoritative source. We perform an extensive evaluation of both steps, using 20 million articles from a real-world news collection. Our results are quite promising, and show that we can perform this task with high precision and at scale. Designing and Building Online Discussion SystemsBy *Amy X. Zhang <http://people.csail.mit.edu/axz/> (MIT)*Today, conversations are everywhere on the Internet and come in many different forms. However, there are still many problems with discussion interfaces today. In my talk, I will first give an overview of some of the problems with discussion systems, including difficulty dealing with large scales, which exacerbates additional problems with navigating deep threads containing lots of back-and-forth and getting an overall summary of a discussion. Other problems include dealing with moderation and harassment in discussion systems and gaining control over filtering, customization, and means of access. Then I will focus on a few projects I am working on in this space now. The first is Wikum, a system I developed to allow users to collaboratively generate a wiki-like summary from threaded discussion. The second, which I have just begun, is exploring the design space of presentation and navigation of threaded discussion. I will next discuss Murmur, a mailing list hybrid system we have built to implement and test ideas around filtering, customization, and flexibility of access, as well as combating harassment. Finally, I'll wrap up with what I am working on at Google Research this summer: developing a taxonomy to describe online forum discussion and using this information to extract meaningful content useful for search, summarization of discussions, and characterization of communities. Hope to see you there! Sarah R. Rodlund Senior Project Coordinator-Engineering, Wikimedia Foundation srodlund(a)wikimedia.org

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Cascadia Wikimedians board and officer update
by Pine W 21 Sep '16

21 Sep '16

Dear colleagues, I am writing to let you know of transition plans at Cascadia Wikimedians. Over the next few months, my Cascadia officer responsibilities will transfer to Peaceray and Brianhe, who are already Cascadia officers and are members of the Affiliates mailing list. I plan to resign my Cascadia officer and board roles sometime around November. I will remain active in the Wikimedia community and with Cascadia Wikimedians, but for the forseeable future I need to focus on activities other than affiliate board and officer work. Peaceray and Brianhe are well aligned with the Cascadia Wikimedians mission, and I am grateful for their willingness to accept additional responsibilities. Cascadia's annual meeting will likely happen in December, and it is possible that there will be further leadership transitions at that time in the normal course of business. Regards, Pine

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We need your input: Building a shared vision of “Leadership”
by Maria Cruz 21 Sep '16

21 Sep '16

*TL:DR: The Community Engagement department invites you to participate in the Leadership Development Dialogue now through October 16th [1].* Hello there, One of the really valuable parts of our community, is the growing number of volunteers who step beyond their comfort zone, and become guides, mentors, and leaders for other parts of the volunteer community. This act of emerging, to take on responsibilities that strengthen our community is widespread, but also something that we need to embrace, refine and improve, so that we have the capacity to meet our broader mission. >From now through October 16th, the Community Engagement department invites you to participate in an online dialogue about just how to describe and build the leadership capacity. Please invite all who may be interested by forwarding to your local community mailing lists, and be sure to join us at: [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Engagement/Leadership_Development… In particular, we need your help: - Improving the “Learning Days” and other leadership development programs supported by the WMF and other organizations - Refining the language and concepts we use to describe “leadership” -- in our initial exploratory engagement of focus groups, we found that the word “leader” does not translate well across language and cultures. In behalf of the Community Engagement department, we hope to see you on the wiki! *María Cruz * \\ Communications and Outreach Coordinator, L&E Team \\ Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. mcruz(a)wikimedia.org | Twitter: @marianarra_ <https://twitter.com/marianarra_>

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Thoughts about upcoming Wikimedia strategy
by Rogol Domedonfors 17 Sep '16

17 Sep '16

As a follow-up to my posting yesterday, I have received a response from WMF staff at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/2016-2017 which states "We know that a common challenge for strategy and vision development work is that people everywhere have a tendency to frame their thinking through their current circumstances. We are open to ideas on how to challenge that tendency so we can expand the scope of creative ideas we receive - it will be essential to both developing ideas that will move us forward, and being receptive to more the challenging ones." In the absence of any other designated venue for those ideas and challenges, I suggest the talk page I refer to for members of the community to discuss lessons learned from previous consultations and discussions, and to propose ideas for how the community-wide consultation should be structured. "Rogol"

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Thoughts about upcoming Wikimedia strategy
by Rogol Domedonfors 16 Sep '16

16 Sep '16

The page at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/2016-2017 makes it clear that there are two stages to the strategy consultation being planned by the WMF: up to December the work is to define the process; from January the work is to execute that process. It has been a matter of some disappointment that the process definition is very largely by a closed consultation with WMF Staff and Board members, which does not seem a good way of discovering what works well or badly from the point of view of the Community. Indeed, I posted some comments to that effect at the talk page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Strategy/2016-2017 I was surprised and disappointed to discover that the response from the WMF was to add a header to the page stating "*the Wikimedia Foundation staff will not be able to properly monitor discussions right now" *That reads to me like a clear snub to the community: their input to the planning of the consultation is not wanted and will not be heard. It is perhaps revealing that while the "Listening and Learning" part of the process concentrates on a narrow set of stakeholders, the "Community Engagement" in this planning stage is all about talking to the community, not about engaging with it in any real sense. The people WMF are currently listening to are people deeply involved in the WMF and the current ways of doing things, and with a likely predisposition to the continuation of doing the same things and in the same way. As an explicitly distinct activity, the notion of engagement with the community in this phase is telling them things. This is not a model of community engagement; it is not the way to develop an effective, innovative and engaging process; and it is not the way to develop a consensus around the results of that process. "Rogol"

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Thoughts about upcoming Wikimedia strategy
by Pine W 16 Sep '16

16 Sep '16

Below are some thoughts I have possible themes that can be included in the strategy update. I'm sharing these in public in case other Wikimedians would like to discuss strategy. 1. Design experience Move the design and intuitive ease of use of the Wikimedia user experience away from a 2000s experience and toward a 2020s experience, both on desktop and mobile platforms. 2. Social experience Decrease the frequency and intensity of negative experiences, and increase the frequency and intensity of positive experiences. 3. Governance Decentralize the functions currently managed by the Wikimedia Foundation to reduce dependencies and increase resilience of the Wikimedia projects, communities, and affiliates. Empower Wikimedia affiliates and the online communities to be capable of continuing operations, fundraising, and growth even if WMF becomes incapacitated or corrupted. 4. Openness Transform WMF and the affiliates into models of open governance and open culture, particularly concerning Board activities and the use of financial resources. Make information be public by default rather than private by default. Proactively publish the expenses and compensation for all individuals and organizations spending or receiving funds from WMF and other Wikimedia affiliates. With limited exceptions for discussions for which there is a strong reason for confidentiality, livestream all Board and Board committee meetings of WMF, chapters, and thematic organizations. 5. Finance Acquire adequate financial resources to achieve goals 1 through 4 within the lifespan of the strategic plan's time horizon. I look forward to hearing the thoughts of others in the months ahead, both on Wikimedia-l and on Meta. Regards, Pine

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New Readers research presentation
by Joe Sutherland 15 Sep '16

15 Sep '16

Hello all! Please join us on September 28 at 16:00 UTC to review the research findings of the New Readers project <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers>! This 1.5 hour presentation will share findings from user research in Mexico, India, and Nigeria. Why should you come? - India, Nigeria, and Mexico represent more than 1.5 billion people, more than 20% of the world - Current Wikipedia awareness and usage in these countries is low – less than 25% of people in Nigeria and India have even heard of Wikipedia - In pursuit of the Wikimedia vision to make knowledge accessible to “every single human being”, we aim to better understand users around the world and meet their real needs Specifically, we will discuss: - Information seeking habits - Internet use, devices, and general knowledge patterns - Wikipedia awareness and usage - User personas developed from findings - Potential next steps and opportunities to better serve New Readers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America More details on the project can be found on Meta-Wiki.[1] Join us on September 28 at 9am PDT / 4pm UTC / 9:30pm IST through our YouTube stream[2] or with conferencing app BlueJeans.[3] best, Joe Sutherland [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_Readers [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYymUXRzpU4 [3] https://bluejeans.com/354618595/ -- *Joe Sutherland* Community Advocate Wikimedia Foundation joesutherland.rocks

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WMF Language team office hour and online meeting on September 21, 2016 (Wednesday) at 1300 UTC
by Runa Bhattacharjee 15 Sep '16

15 Sep '16

[x-posted announcement] Hello, The next online office hour session of the Wikimedia Language team is scheduled for next Wednesday, September 21st, 2016 at 13:00 UTC. This session is going to be an online discussion over Google Hangouts/Youtube with a simultaneous IRC conversation. Due to the limitation of Google Hangouts, only a limited number of participation slots are available. Hence, do please let us know if you would like to join in the Hangout. This time we will be taking questions from youtube viewers, only on the IRC channel #wikimedia-office. The channel will be open for interactions during the session. Questions can also be sent ahead of time to us. Our last online round-table session was held in June 2016. You can watch the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rANCUuJRTE8 Please read below for the event details, including local time, youtube session link and do let us know if you have any questions. Thank you Runa == Details == # Event: Wikimedia Language team's office hour session # When: September 21, 2016 (Wednesday) at 13:00 UTC (check local time http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20160921T1300) # Where: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXgMZ7myEA4 and on IRC #wikimedia-office (Freenode) # Agenda: Updates from the Language team and Q & A. -- Language Engineering Manager Wikimedia Foundation

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Wikimedia-l September 2016